The Water Bottle

So I've not done the best at keeping up my posts.  The good news is that I've not traded it in for just sitting on the sofa wasting my day.  No.  I've been keeping up my eating.  Oh!  Update on that 21 day challenge.  Actually I had a post all ready for that but decided it was way too long so am working on breaking it up.  That will come soon enough.

Anyway, I've been sticking with my workouts.  In the gym and out of it.  I've been staying true to my workouts at work and have grown to crave my Piloxing workouts.  At home I'm trying my  hand at yoga.  I've been having problems with my hip (from my stair spill back in August) so I thought maybe if I work on some flexibility that would help.  We'll see.

Well since I've been sweating up a storm I've been trying to keep up the water intake.  I usually carry around a water bottle I got free at a church I visited.  The little flip cap broke so I tried to repair it by taping it on.  It works for the most part.  I was at Walmart today getting a quick oil change.  While roaming the store in wait, I came across the water bottle selection.  I don't know why I've not considered buying one before. Probably because I keep getting little free ones.  So anyway, I found one that I really liked.  It not only has the screw top I like that's found on the regular store-bought waters, but it also unscrews below that so that you can add ice or clean it.  I can't tell you how hard it was to try and use a baby bottle brush to clean my old bottles.  This one is so awesome!  Can't wait to use it during my next workout.

And that's my update for the day.  Hope you're enjoying this beautiful weekend!

The First Three

Part of the reason I like this plan is that the meals are simple and easy.  I don't have to do too much.  This is just a quick photo post of the meals I've eaten for the 1st three days of my challenge.  It doesn't look like much but has been just enough to get me through the days. 

Day 1 Breakfast: Cheese toast, orange, green tea.

Day 1 Lunch:  My Fit Foods small lunch of chicken breasts, apples, grapefruit, walnuts and a couple of marinated olives.  Not exactly on the Rotation plan but it worked since I was out all day.

Day 1 Dinner:  Salad with rotisserie chicken and raspberry vinaigrette.

Day 2 Breakfast:  Oatmeal with a T of cranberries and a splash of skim milk and 8 oz OJ.

Day 2 Lunch:  Chicken broth cup, salad tossed with vinegar, tuna with vinaigrette on bread.

 

Day 2 Dinner:  2oz Salmon  and 2 cups mixed veggies with seasonings cooked in parchment together.

 

Day 3 Breakfast:  Flax flatbread, 1 T peanut butter, 1/2 pear, unsweetened chai tea, water.

 

Day 3 Lunch:  Flax flatbread, mixed salad, 2 oz tuna with raspberry vinaigrette.

 

Dinner planned tonight is a Boca patty, steamed asparagus, side salad, 1 oz cheese, one orange and water.

 

Enjoy your day!

 

 

Quote of the Day: “Humor keeps us alive. Humor and food. Don't forget food. You can go a week without laughing.” ~ Joss Whedon

 

 

 

 

I Vow, I Promise, I Resolve?

What was your New Year's Resolution?  I don't generally make them.  I set goals to do something different but I tend to choose vague ones.  They can go either way.  If I don't reach them then....well...I just don't.  No consequences.  No beating myself up.  I get over it quickly and move on with life. 

But this year is different.  This year I've set two goals and I think I've done it in a way that makes me a little more grown up about the whole thing.  I chose one that's challenging but for a limited time and one that seems crazily impossible but it's something that will benefit me if I can at least make an effort.  That being said, here are my resolutions.

1) Go hard with my healthy living for 21 days.  Up until now I've just been going with the flow.  I work out and I try to each as healthy as possible.  It's been slow going but I didn't want to rush things. I didn't set an amount of weight to lose but I did set a pant size.  I reached it (without even knowing it!). I didn't vow to eat strictly one way or another.  That worked out fine until November hit and injuries and laziness followed.  It's amazing how when I couldn't workout I ate terribly.  There's something wrong with that.  My head was not in the game.  So I gained a little back and then had to get back into it (which was hard).  By the time I hit my groove, my CF classes were cancelled until the beginning of the new year.  Since my head wasn't in it, I sat at home and barely worked out and ate terribly.  In my defense I'm blaming it on the fact that I had the pressures of family visiting and no me time.  Yep.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it! 

So, what do I mean by going hard?  I happen to know in order for me to stay motivated I must see some good results.  While I did OK for a good majority of the year, I can't say that I pushed as hard as I could have.  Or resisted temptation when I should have.  For me to get the results I need to stay motivated I, along with a reluctant sister, have committed to my 21 Day Challenge.  The theory behind this is that it's only 21 days and when that time is complete, we will see such good results that we will continue and set another goal for another 21 days.  The challenge is simple.  We follow The Rotation Diet by Martin Katahn.  That's the food portion. We will also be working out.  She will be doing her treadmill workouts along with some Leslie Sansone Walking Workouts.   I will be sticking with my lunchtime Crossfit classes at work as well as some at home workouts and my new favorite cardio workout of Piloxing a couple days a week.  As much as I like CF, I'm never thrilled with the cardio-heavy days.  Therefore I needed something to keep it fun.  I'm still a zumba fan but I like the heavy sweat I get from this (along with the music!).  That's it!  I know if we stick with this for the next 21 days we will see results we can be proud of.

2) Work hard to lessen my road rage.  Now this does not mean I tail people that piss me off and follow them in a blind rage.  No.  I just yell, curse and growl in the confines of my car.  My husband pointed that out.  He's a patient man and doesn't drive that often. Of course he sees the error of my ways.  Ugh!  So this seems impossible to me right now but that's only because I've not wanted to face the fact that my actions are just not that attractive and does nothing to help me mentally or physically.  I've no plan on how to do this yet.  As I was on my way to class today I was mindlessly yelling to the car in front of me that basically stopped in the middle of traffic to get over in the other lane with no blinker.  He was wrong of course but my yelling didn't make a difference to him.  All it did was get my BP up and sour my mood.  Good thing I had 60 minutes of cardio following that to knock the hellishness right out of me!  So that's my crazy impossible goal/resolution/vow.  Pray for me.

Those are my grown up resolutions.  I'm comfortable with the 21 days and a bit daunted by the rage remedy.  That's ok.  I fully intend to succeed and hopefully you will be able to follow my progress.  Still working on the blog laziness. 

Quote of the Day:  This bright new year is given me to live each day with zest . . .to daily grow and try to be my highest and my best!~William Arthur Ward

Absent Eating

So since it's been months and months since I've posted anything and my achy head and body is blocking my creative writing skills at the moment, I figured I would unload all the phone photos of food I've been saving while I was absent. Most of these are lunch shots I share daily with a friend who is watching what she eats and wants to use my meals to help create hers.  Admittedly my meals can be a bit odd but I eat to fuel and even though they may not sound appetizing, they are pretty tasty.

Lunch: Steamed broccoli and garbanzo beans with Italian dressing with a blueberry smoothie and pickle/olive mix in bag.

Snack:  Raspberries, cucumber, celery, light cream cheese on 1/2 multigrain bagel, and green tea.

Lunch:  Garbanzo beans, avocado, tuna with vinaigrette.  Side of oranges and grapes.

Lunch:  Black-eyed peas, rice and Italian dressing.  Not pictured is a side of oranges.

Breakfast:  Cinnamon melt with earl gray tea. (I didn't purchase...it was a gift from a co-worker I swear!)

Dinner:  Baked pork ribs, mashed potatoes and mixed veggies (husband made)

Lunch:  Imitation crab, grilled chicken strips, olives, pickles, cucs, celery and light ranch dressing.  This meal is great when I'm not hungry but know if I don't eat something I will be starving later.  Eating to fuel!

Lunch:  Grilled cheese on french bread and a pear.  

Lunch:  Spring mix salad, grilled chicken and light ranch dressing.

Lunch:  Grilled chicken and mixed veggies.  

Lunch:  Grilled chicken, broccoli and baked potato.

Lunch:  Turkey meatballs, garbanzo beans, broccoli and cauliflower with vinegar/olive oil dressing.

 

Lunch: Garbanzos in light vinaigrette over green salad.

Lunch:  Homemade personal pizza and an orange.

Lunch:  Hard boiled egg, olives, pickles, celery, mango and banana.

Dinner:  Stewed pork, potatoes, sweet potatoes and peas (Husband made).

 

Boy.  I have a lot of photos.  I'm gonna say save some for another day.  So that's all folks. 

Tuesday's Challenge

It's been a challenging day!  I got up early this morning and the lazy bug hit me so I didn't do a workout.  No Shaun T, Jillian, Beto or Husband.  Nope.  I took the pups on a walk and came back and took my time getting ready for my day.  Funny thing is that when I do this I always find myself running late.  Go figure.  Anyway,  my lack of drive is not what this post was supposed to be about.

I did find that drive believe it or not.  I struggled through the morning trying to stay awake, focus on my work, keep my 'polite' filter up and not insult anyone around me.  I know when I have nothing nice to say I should just shut up.  Today it was so very hard.  Sarcasm was rolling all around inside my head.  So anyway, while trying to control my tongue and stay focused, I found myself drifting at my desk.  I didn't mean to.  Really!  I took off my glasses and rubbed my eyes for a second and boom!  Hands stopped moving and I caught myself in a nice little dream.  When I woke...ahem...came to...I noticed no one even saw me.  Phew! Of course after looking at the clock I realized it was only about 3 minutes.  How do I know this?  I was timing a task and had been writing down the time when I stopped and started.  It was at this point that I decided I would definitely be going to the 1:30 cross fit class and I would hit it hard to build some wake me up energy.

I showed up and was not my chatty self.  This is not my regular class and the ladies there had not yet seen my 'workout only' face.  The instructor came to me and said, 'Smile'.  Man...this was a different group than I'm used to.  They are a little more uhm....I don't know....chummy?  So I put on a smile and pushed as much as I could.  I don't know where they were in the AMRAP stage but I felt like I was giving it all I had.  I ignored them as I did my thing.  I don't mind saying I was groaning like a madman when it came to the pull ups.  Oh man it felt great!  But the best part was the end when we did the breathing exercises.  It was just what I needed to get me through the last half of the day.

When it was all done and I was cleaned up I had about 15 minutes to eat a bit of lunch.  Today's lunch was just enough. And Also very tasty!
 

I split a sweet onion roll and topped it with mixed chopped fresh spinach, pico, and shredded cheese.

I grilled it and wrapped it for lunch.

Perfectly filling grilled sandwich and a side of applesauce/yogurt with ground granola.  Yumeh!!!

Hope your Tuesday was Terrific!!!

Encouraging Exercise (a.k.a. My Little Rant)

I had the unfortunate chance to become annoyed with a friend (and fellow crossfitter) recently. She does crossfit at another gym and that is the only workout she will do. I on the other hand mix things up just to keep myself going. I do crossfit at work and on days that I’m not there (or not lazily sitting on my butt) I do zumba, dvd workouts, old school tae bo from youtube, jump roping, hula hooping and whatever else I find to be interesting. So, anyway we were discussing what our workouts were looking like for the week. I told her since I had been absent from crossfit for a couple of weeks I needed to ease back into it but needed to get back on the cardio in a hurry so I planned on some multiple zumba classes. She said, ‘Ha Zumba?!? You can’t be serious. That’s not a real workout!’ I had to get myself together before responding because I immediately swelled up with anger and annoyance. This is not the 1^st time I’d come up against this attitude. I went into my rant about how first off no one has any business putting another’s workout down. She had never even tried it. I told her if she tried a good class I can almost guarantee she would come away winded. Yes…a winded crossfit lung! I love me some crossfit but I equally love zumba…and African dance…and biking….and whatever else gives me physical joy through sweat.

I walk with a group at work because it’s a good form of movement in the middle of a day worth of sitting. For most of the group this is their only workout of the day. Do I look down on them? Hell no! It’s better than them doing nothing! I encourage them to go farther, faster and longer. They encourage me to drag my lazy butt to crossfit or zumba after work. What’s this ‘my workout is better than yours’ attitude? That’s some mess right there! 

So people think before you speak . If you know someone who’s just starting to work out and it may not be as intense as you’d like, encourage them instead of putting them down. Besides, what you think is tough and bad-assed is probably a walk in the park to someone else.

Drop the mic...

Foolishness and Food Graffiti

This past weekend I had some issues that I've been putting off for far too long.  So long that it finally caught up with me.  Headaches, balloon-head, and nose bleeds were my companions for the weekend.  Sadly, I didn't want to go to Urgent Care because I was too cheap or afraid or both.  The husband was understandably freaked out.  Especially after I tried to do a light workout with him only to have it result in a near pass-out.  He even called my sister to come and babysit me while he went to work because he didn't want me to be alone.

The BP was crazy high and I've been struggling with it for a few weeks now.  The thing is I thought I had it all under control and for some reason it was back up.  I finally gave up and called my doctor who advised me to come in right away.  Unfortunately I had made the decision to go to work so I had to fight lunch traffic with an aching head, squinty eyes, and pressured head.  I went in and had another battery of tests.  I was given more meds and ordered to relax, stop stressing, get more sleep and get back in the gym.  Apparently this working out business is good for stress and when you stop things start going south.

So anyway, after a seriously hard weekend (and  Monday) I rejoined my after work Crossfit group.  It was awesome! Just what I needed to give my attitude and moral a boost.  All day I was thinking I would rather go home and chill but I guess that's what got me in trouble to begin with.  Then there was my reminder that I had prepared protein to eat before my workout.

Yes I play with my food.  At least at work I do.  I can't help it. I'm a chronic doodler and I always have a sharpie near my naturally packaged foods.  Lol.  Don't believe me?  Check out my bananas.

   

   

So today was Fight Gone Bad.  Not a bad workout for me.  I'm not saying that to imply that it was easy.  Remember I've not been there in weeks.  No, I'm saying that because I attempted this workout with the husband and only got halfway through the first round before I got disoriented, dizzy and almost passed out.  I should have known better because I wasn't feeling great before we got started but I figured I just wouldn't push as hard.  Oh man.  I know you must think I'm the dumbest person ever.  At that moment yes I was.  I don't know what possessed me to ignore the signs and go through with it.  But I did and I learned my lesson.  So anyway, I got through 3 rounds today with no light head, dizzy or nose bleed.  I'm back!

I learned many lessons over all of this.  If the body is giving you indication that something is wrong, listen.  My body is worth more than the little bit of money it will take to go to Urgent Care.  My husband's love may not always be plain for all to see, but when he worries I see it all over him.  So I'm back at it tomorrow.  The weights may not be as heavy and the rowing a little slower but I'll get back on board in due time.

Have a good night!